


Kept Out of Sight (But No More)

by Arrow_ze_Fangirl



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badass Sarah Jacobs (Newsies), Canon Era, Canon Rewrite, Davey is dead oops, F/M, Gen, How Do I Tag, I'm so sorry, Jack Kelly Being an Idiot, Minor Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, basically it's the same but sarah is davey instead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24559183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrow_ze_Fangirl/pseuds/Arrow_ze_Fangirl
Summary: Sarah Jacobs' family is in a tight situation. Her father is hurt and out of work, her mother is sick, and her twin brother, David, was just killed by the same illness. They're running out of options--that is, until Sarah takes matters into her own hands.Taking David's name and clothes was easy. Pretending to be him to get a job as a newsboy and accidentally becoming one of the leaders of the Lower Manhattan newsies' strike? Not so much.A.K.A. an AU where instead of Davey, Sarah is the one who takes the paper-selling job and starts the strike.
Relationships: Les Jacobs & Sarah Jacobs, Sarah Jacobs & Jack Kelly, Sarah Jacobs & Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, Sarah Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Santa Fe (Prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work I've ever written for Newsies, yay! I've had this idea for quite a while, but I'm just getting it on paper now. Stay with me, we'll eventually finish this one. (unlike the others oops)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Crutchie sit on the roof and talk, while Sarah and Les figure out how they're going to set their plan into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kiiiind of used the script a LOT when I was writing this, so look out for exact dialogue, I suppose.

Early in the morning of July 19, 1899, New York was beginning to come to life. Two boys slept on the roof of the newsies' lodging house, far above the mostly empty streets. It was quiet, or, well, as quiet as could be considering the usual volume of the city.

Jack lay awake, watching the grey clouds float peacefully through the sky, when he heard rustling from the other side of the roof. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Crutchie was trying to get down the fire escape, but from what Jack could tell, the wooden crutch was making it much harder. 

"Where you goin'?" he asked, shifting to get more comfortable. "Morning bell ain't rung yet. Go back to sleep."

Jack couldn't see it, but he knew the younger boy was rolling his eyes. "I wanna beat the other guys to the street. I don't want anyone to see that I ain't been walkin' so good." He grabbed the railing and tried again to get down.

"Oh, quit gripin'," Jack laughed. "You know how many guys fake a limp for sympathy? That bum leg o' yours is a gold mine!"

"Someone gets the idea I can't make it on my own, they'll lock me up in the Refuge for good!" He turned his head and motioned for Jack to come over. "Be a pal, Jack, help me down." The older boy sighed and started up, just as Crutchie lost his footing and slipped off the ladder.

Jack was there in a flash, grabbing Crutchie's outstretched hand and hauling him back onto the rooftop. He lay there, panting, refusing to let go of his brother's hand for fear that the next second he would be gone again.

When he finally caught his breath, he sat up again. "What, you tryna bust your other leg, too?" he demanded, although he was more scared than angry.

"I just wanna go down." Crutchie pouted. All of Jack's fear and anger melted away, seeing his brother scared like he was, and he put his arm around the boy to comfort him.

"You'll be down there soon enough." He pulled Crutchie closer so there was no way he would be slipping again. "For now, take a minute to drink in my penthouse, high above the stinkin' streets of New York."

"You're crazy," Crutchie laughed, moving to grab his crutch again. Jack let him, standing up himself.

He leaned back, hanging on the railing. "Them streets down there, they sucked the life outta my old man, well they ain't doin' that to me!"

"But everyone wants to come to New York," Crutchie protested.

"You can keep your small life in the big city. Give me a big life in a small town..." Jack trailed off, staring up at the clouds. Suddenly, he heard two voices rise from below, clearly ringing over the murmur of the city.

"There's no way I'm allowing you to do that!"

"I have to! You and Ma aren't making any money, and it's not like Dave can anymore!"

"Oh, don't bring him into this!"

Jack sent a questioning look towards Crutchie, but the younger boy just shrugged. Ever curious, he looked over the edge to see what the commotion was about.

An older, stressed-looking man with his arm in a sling stood in the light of an open doorway, yelling at a teenage girl who Jack could only assume was his daughter. She had long, dark, curly hair, and though Jack couldn't see her face very well, she was definitely very pretty. A young boy who looked strikingly similar stood by her side, holding a bundle of clothes in one hand and the girl's hand in the other. 

"We'll find a way; I'll find some new job where I don't need to use my arm!" The man continued. "It's too dangerous for you and your brother, standing out in the streets all day long!"

"I'm doing it, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" The girl hiked up the front of her dress and took off running down the street. The boy followed closely, struggling to keep up. Something in the girl's hand caught the light of the moon and reflected in Jack's eyes, and he was momentarily blinded. When he could see again, the kids were gone and the door was shut. He shook his head. He didn't want to get involved in whatever was going on down there.

"Time for dreamin's done," Jack huffed. He stood up, helping Crutchie to his feet in the meantime.

"Hey! Specs, Racer, Henry, Albert, Elmer! Get a move on, those papes don't sell themselves!"

***

Meanwhile, Sarah was running. Les trailed behind her, clutching the clothes they had grabbed from David's old drawer. She raced through alleys and main streets, sidewalks and lawns, and stopped only when she was sure nobody was around.

"Les," she panted, "help me out of this dress, would you?" The ten-year-old only nodded, moving to unbutton her back. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath, and stared at the scissors she was holding. 

She knew what she was doing was right, in the long run. Sure, lying was wrong, and so was yelling at your parents and running away, but it was for a good cause. After all, she and Les were the only able-bodied members of her family anymore, and they needed to eat to survive. 

"Got it!" Les's voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and she let the dress fall and stepped out. She was wearing tight pants and such underneath just for this reason, so she had no reason to be ashamed of undressing in an alleyway.

"Okay, now can you work on my hair?" She reached up to feel her curls, tied up for what might be the last time. Les nodded again, ushering her to sit down so he could reach. She held back a sob as she heard the snip of the scissors, and the left half of her head suddenly felt much lighter than before. 

Les held a handful of hair in front of her face. "You want it?" he asked, and she swatted him away. 

"Just work on making it even. We don't want it to look like we were raised in a barn, now do we?"

Five minutes later, Les claimed that he was done and she had no choice but to believe him. She grabbed the pile of boy's clothes and shooed him off so that he would keep watch and she could get dressed. She took the underclothes off and worked on wrapping her chest. 

She had practiced this before, as she knew it would be hard to pass for a boy otherwise, but it was still hard to breathe and she wasn't sure if she was doing something wrong or that was just how it worked. Either way, she didn't have time to worry about it, and she put on the rest of the clothes in record time.

Once she had the vest on and the hat on top of her head, she turned back to face Les. "How do I look?" 

The boy turned around, and immediately burst into tears. "Woah, woah, why're you crying?" she asked, reaching out to comfort him.

Les hugged her waist tightly, giving no answer. That didn't help her breathing at all, but she didn't say anything for fear she would upset him more.

"You look just like him," he sobbed, and her heart broke. She had been told she and David looked alike before, but she hadn't given any thought to how pretending to be him would affect Les. After all, the pneumonia he and Ma had fallen to had only gotten to him a few weeks before...

There wasn't time to think about that now, though. "Hey, we've gotta get to the distribution office if we want to get any papers to sell today, alright?" Les looked up with tear-filled eyes and nodded.

"We're gonna be okay," she assured him as they joined the other Manhattan newsies in walking to the office. So long as nobody noticed them, it would all be okay...or, at least, she hoped so.


	2. Carrying the Banner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah and Les meet Jack and the rest of the newsies, and Sarah causes a bit of a scene with Wiesel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice that I left out a very big part of this scene? Yeah, that's not because I forgot, more to save myself the secondhand embarrassment that I get every time I read or watch this terrible scene. Also, because Sarah is a little bit smarter than Davey...

Sarah gripped Les's hand more tightly as the two of them were pushed around by the crowd. The newsies didn't seem to notice that they were new, or even that they were there in the first place. The boys were loudly joking and play-fighting, and Sarah watched them in fascination. She hadn't really noticed how the boys acted before, but if she was going to pretend to be one of them, she had to pay attention at the very least.

She felt something bump her more roughly than before, and she yelped in surprise. She went to turn around to apologize, but tripped over Les, who had let go of her hand to go "make new friends" or something. Her hands flew out to catch herself, but instead of feeling the pavement, she felt a rough hand holding hers and pulling her back to her feet.

"Sorry about that! Racer and Al were fighting and I tried to break it up but Race pushed me into you and-" The voice stopped abruptly. She looked up to see who had caught her, and her breath caught in her throat.

The boy holding her up had to be around her age, 17 years old, but he looked like he could be older. His dark brown eyes had that sparkle to them that you would only see in the confident, class-clown type of boy, and she didn't understand why it gave her such a warm feeling in her chest.

She realized she was staring, and straightened up to brush off her pants. "No, no, I'm sorry," she stuttered, "I was in the way. Sorry about that--" She cut off, only then noticing that she couldn't see Les anymore. "I'm gonna go, I need to find my brother." She rushed off, eager to get her mind off that boy.

"Les? Le~esss?" She called, though she doubted anybody could hear her over the ruckus the boys around her were making. She scanned the crowd for her little brother, finally spotting him talking to a younger-looking blond boy who looked to be leaning on a wooden crutch.

"Why do you need a crutch?" She heard Les ask, and shook her head in disbelief of her little brother's total lack of a filter. She ran up to the two and pulled Les away by the shoulders.

"Oh my God, I am *so* sorry," she apologized frantically. "He's only ten, he doesn't know any better."

The boy laughed. "Don't worry 'bout it. I get it all the time from the little ones." He held out a hand that Sarah could only assume was to shake. "My name's Charlie, but the boys all call me Crutchie."

"That's an...unfortunate nickname," Sarah noted as she shook Charlie's hand. 

"Nah, 's really not that bad." 

"My name is S--" She cut herself off before she could blow her cover. *Really? Five minutes in and we're already trying to give away our real names?* "David," she finished. Charlie raised a questioning eyebrow at her hesitation, but then there was a commotion at the front gate that he left to investigate. She realized then that she had lost Les again and took off looking once more.

The crowd had all moved again, now clustered around the gate. She pushed through, apologizing to a couple boys who gave her looks, and finally found Les. At the front of the crowd. Where a fight was about to break out.

She ran to grab him and pull him out of the way just as Charlie was thrown to the ground by one of the tough-looking brothers who had come to unlock the gate. She gasped and pulled Les, who was trying to jump to see, closer to her so that he couldn't run into the fight.

"Now that's not nice, Morris," said a voice she recognized. The boy who had caught her earlier stepped forward and shoved the brother who had pushed Charlie. 

The blond kid beside her took a step towards the gate. "Five to one Jack skunks 'em!"

The boy--Jack? Was that what the kid had called him?--grabbed Charlie's crutch from Morris's hands. "One unfortunate day you might find out ya got a bum gam o' your own. How'd you like us pickin' on you?" He moved to a stance that Sarah knew meant he was about to lunge, but apparently Morris did not. "Hey, maybe we should find out!"

The crutch went flying. Morris was on the ground, and half a second later, so was his brother. Sarah hoped that meant this was over, but clearly that wasn't the case. The brother was quicker to recover, and he jumped up. 

"Oh, wait 'til I get my hands on you--" He didn't get the chance. Jack pushed him down with the crutch, yelling something along the lines of "ya gotta catch me first!" and jumped over Morris, and the rest of the boys ran through the gates after him. Les dragged Sarah along, following the crowd, and Sarah had no choice but to continue for fear she would be noticed if she stayed behind.

"Papes for the newsies, line up!" An old man stood behind the distribution window collecting money. Beside him stood the two brothers, who Sarah had come to know as the Delancys by listening to the conversations happening around her. Somehow she and Les had made it to fourth in line, just behind Charlie, Jack, and the energetic blond kid they called Race.

Before she knew it, they had reached the window. "Have a look at this, a new kid," Wiesel sneered, looking her up and down and making her feel generally uncomfortable. Sure, men had done this to her before, but usually she wasn't dressed as a boy and trying to hide that fact.

Fortunately, Les saved her. "Hey, I'm new too!" She shushed him, but he had already gotten the attention of the entire square.

"Ay, don't worry, kid, it rubs right off," said Race, and the rest of the newsies laughed in agreement and went back to their conversations. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding and turned back to Wiesel.

"I'll take twenty newspapers, please," Sarah sighed.

"Twenty for the new kid, let's see the dime." 

She handed him the dime and grabbed her papers, making sure to count them carefully. Her father had warned her about men like this, who would try to pull a fast one on unsuspecting kids, and she wasn't about to let that happen to her.

"...seventeen, eighteen, nineteen," she counted under her breath. *Damn it.* "Uh, sorry, excuse me? I paid for twenty but you only gave me nineteen."

The entire square went silent, and she felt her cheeks go red as all of the boys stared at her.

Wiesel laughed. "You seen how nice I was to dis new kid, and what do I get for my civility? Ungrounded accusations."

"I just want what I paid for," she insisted. She was slightly afraid of the boys behind the counter, but she wasn't going to show it.

The shorter of the brothers cracked his knuckles and glared at her. "He said beat it!" Her eyes widened and she stepped back, but Jack swooped in and grabbed the stack from her hands.

"Hey!" she said as he counted the papers, but he held out a hand to stop her.

"New kid's right, Weasel," Jack said. "Ya gave 'im nineteen, but I'm sure it was an honest mistake on account'a Oscar can't count to twenty with 'is shoes on." He smirked as Wiesel pulled back a very angry Oscar and tossed a paper into Sarah's arms.

"There, now take a hike." Weisel ushered the next kid in line forward, but Jack flipped another coin onto the counter.

"Give him another fifty papes."

Sarah grabbed the boy's arm. "I don't want more papes," she huffed, but Jack wouldn't have any of it.

"What kinda newsie doesn't want more papes?" The boys who were still paying attention nodded and gave their agreement. Oscar shoved the stack towards Sarah, who followed the retreating Jack towards the rest of the newsies.

"Hey, I'm no charity case. I don't even know you!" She raised her arms in indignation.

Les piped in with a very helpful "his name's Jack!" and Sarah pushed him aside, rolling her eyes. Charlie stood up and hobbled over to join them.

"This here's the famous Jack Kelly," the boy stated. "He once escaped jail on the back of Teddy Roosevelt's carriage. Made all the papes." Impressive. The boy seemed to be more than she had first expected.

Said boy had turned his attention to Les by this point. "How old are you, kid?"

"I'm ten, almost!" Les replied with way too much enthusiasm. 

"Well, if anybody asks, you're seven," Jack patted him on the head, and Sarah immediately moved to stop him, though Les didn't show any discomfort. "Younger sells more papes, and if we're gonna be partners..."

"Who said we want a partner?" Sarah interrupted. 

Charlie intervened once again. "Sellin' with Jack's the chance of a lifetime! You learn from him, you learn from the best." Sarah shook her head. God, did all of these boys worship Jack or something?

"If he's the best, then what does he need with me?"

Jack grabbed Les by the shoulders again. "'Cause you got a little brother, and I don't. That puss could easy sell a thousand papes a week!" He turned to Les. "Look sad kid." Les did as he was told. It was a very convincing pout. "We're gonna make millions!" 

This boy was unbelievable! Who did he think he was, using Les for his own good? Then again, Sarah was looking to make as much money as she can...

"This is my si-" Sarah jumped at Les's near mistake and sent him a glare. "-brother, David."

Jack walked back up to Sarah. "Nice to meet ya, Davey." Sarah flinched, hard. At least she could pretend it was because of the pat on the back, and not because of the use of David's old nickname that she had given them when they were kids. Definitely not.

"My two bits come off the top," Jack continued, "and then we split everythin' seventy-thirty."

Sarah was about to argue when Les did it for her. "Fifty-fifty. You wouldn't try to pull a fast one on a little kid!"

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Smart kid," he stage-whispered to Sarah, who laughed. He directed his voice to Les again. "Sixty-fourty, and that's my final offer."

Les looked at Sarah, who shrugged. It wasn't too bad a deal, she thought. "Deal."

Jack spat in his hand and held it out for Les to shake. *Oh dear Lord, please don't do it, Les*, she thought. Then he copied Jack and they shook hands. 

Sarah shuddered. "That's disgusting."

"That's business!" Jack laughed, then turned to the rest of the boys. "Newsies, hit the streets. The sun is up, this headline stinks, and this kid ain't gettin' any younger!" Sarah sighed as she followed Les and Jack out of the square and towards the street. Jack wasn't the worst partner to have, she supposed. At least she had gotten a boy who wasn't too bad to look at...


End file.
